MARIA ZHANG

Trust and empowerment is ‘The Juniper Way’, which Maria Zhang describes as “a set of core values on how we conduct our business [including] a strong belief in fostering an environment steeped in openness and autonomy”. Zhang’s proudest accomplishment of the past year was helping to put together a solid roster of country leaders for Asia-Pacific, and bringing on board new systems engineering and marketing APAC leads. In 2017, her priority is the internal culture-focused program JUNI, which is designed to help staff take greater ownership and accountability of their work, while fulfilling personal career development goals. Facing an extremely competitive talent market in Singapore, the company has partnered with universities and educational institutes in internship and recruitment, and over 10 fresh college graduates joined their go-to-market teams in 2016. As the networking technology industry is mostly led by established veterans, Juniper hopes to diversify the workforce by bringing in more ‘next generation’ workers who can spearhead technological advances for a new era.